Saturday Morning Gaming: Slay The Spire

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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16 Responses

  1. Fish says:

    I…er…slew the Spire the first (so far only) time with a Silent constructed around caltrops and gaining Energy: High energy allowed me to play lots of cards and I had something like four caltrops cards in my hand (all upgraded) and I’d just stack them and play Block cards. Enemies would batter themselves to death, taking damage trying to hit me. I had so many Energy buffs that it did not matter how many cards I had in my deck. And there is indeed a Shiv build for the Silent–it’s great fun.

    I have more time invested in the Ironclad but I’m finding that the balance between attack and defend for this character is a real knife edge (ha!). I’ve found two really good builds with the Ironclad: The Flex build and the Cleve build. The Flex build involves piling on the strenght to really beef up your hitting power, and the Cleve build involves stacking your deck with attack cards so you can employ Cleve cards to great effect. The Ironclad ends up being a glass cannon who has to hit hard and fast or he’s going to go down.

    I didn’t like the Defect the first time I played him. I didn’t really understand how the orbs worked and the Defect felt a bit overpowered. Subsequent replays have proved this impression wrong and the Defect requires a play style wholly different from the other two. I still haven’t played him enough to really give any deep thoughts about builds and preferences.

    And another (free) character is coming! I, too, would have happily paid full price for this game.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Fish says:

      I used the Silent and poison, poison, poison. (I got the achievement for more than 100 poison that run.)Report

      • Fish in reply to Jaybird says:

        A question: At the beginning when the undead three-eyed whale thing offers you a buff, what do you usually take? I always opt for extra hit points or a bonus card. I rarely choose trading my starting relic for a random boss relic, and I NEVER elect to lose hit points for a rare card.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Fish says:

          Well, I’m learning that part of the point is to always be pleased with your hand. So if there is an offer to remove a card, I take it.

          But increasing max HP is good.

          Obtain a curse and gain gold? Well, that just means that I make a beeline for the nearest shop and buy a card removal (free 200 gold!)

          When it comes to bonus cards, I find that I’m usually disappointed by them. Even if they’re rare.Report

          • Fish in reply to Jaybird says:

            Sounds good. I’d forgotten that he sometimes offers to remove a card. That’s probaly 1-1a in terms of choosing more hit points or losing a card.Report

            • Jaybird in reply to Fish says:

              I think a more important skill is to be able to say “nah, I don’t need a card” after a successful combat and the only cards they offer you are for builds you aren’t running.Report

              • Fish in reply to Jaybird says:

                YES! So hard to say no to a new card sometimesReport

              • Jaybird in reply to Fish says:

                There is a relic that gives you the option of taking +2 Max HP instead of a new card.

                I’m on that artifact like a bad simile.

                It might not make sense for The Silent or The Defect but it is the Ironclad’s bread and butter. (I just defeated the Spire with the Ironclad… I had that artifact and got up to 98 max HP before I had two encounters towards the end that asked me to trade some pretty sweet stuff for max HP. I made the trade and took out the last boss handily. It was a “MORE STRENGTH!” build. When I killed the last boss, I had 30ish strength.)Report

              • Fish in reply to Jaybird says:

                Nice. I haven’t seen that artifact yet. I’ve been toying around with strength builds on the Ironclad and…my thinking is wrong. I keep getting smushed far too early. Gotta rething things here.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Fish says:

          Oh! The one I find most tempting? “Enemies in the next 3 combats have 1 hp”.

          About half of the time, you’re able to find a path to an elite that only goes through two dedicated fights… which means that your first elite monster fight has only 1 hp.

          Which means that you can start the real part of the game with a relic and a handful of whatever you got in the random encounter spaces.

          Sure, sometimes you don’t (and sometimes it’s crap) but, sometimes, you have a really strong start within a minute or two.Report

          • Fish in reply to Jaybird says:

            I almost never choose this one unless the other options make this the best one. I’m always looking for long-term benefit (which I suppose the cards you’d get from beating three enemies with one hit each WOULD represent long-term…so…hmm…)Report

  2. Pinky says:

    I’ve been playing my first deck-building game, Warhammer 40000: Space Wolf. It’s pretty fun, and you can play it without spending a fortune on boosts. You can actually earn new cards rather than pay cash for them. Deck-building is a good fit for 40K, since it’s already maddening and turn-based.

    I just recently acquired a missile launcher, named the Twin-Wolf Launcher. That got me thinking about a Twin Wolf-Launcher. If you think about it, it’s kind of odd that 40K doesn’t have wolf-launchers. You see an enemy, you want to launch wolves at him. It’s human nature.

    BTW it looks like something happened to your first paragraph.Report

  3. Blake says:

    It might be a good idea to pick something like that up. I still play like I’m a teenager with nothing else to do, which means I don’t really play. Heh.Report

  4. Fish says:

    I’m just here to say I * CANNOT * FIGURE * OUT * HOW * TO * WIN * WITH * THE * GODS * FISHING * DAMNED * IRONCLAD *
    I mean…I thought I had an excellent defensive-centered build (three Metallicize, a couple of Shrug It Offs, Juggernaut, a Block to put all that defense to offensive use, etc) and I could do a fair amount of damage and some good relics to back me up on long fights–and they were all long because the baddies couldn’t really hurt me so I could sit back and whittle them down. But I ran into a dude (and for the life of me I don’t recall who it was) that just slowly did more and mOrE and MoRe and MORE damage until eventually he was hitting me for 70 and I didn’t have the defense or hit points to survive.

    Can’t wait to try again.Report